PM hoping for a shot in the arm as sittings shape election battleground
Anthony Albanese is in a political ascendancy while Scott Morrison seems moribund. This winter sitting will be key.
Anthony Albanese is in a political ascendancy while Scott Morrison seems moribund, as the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister prepare to head into the four-week parliamentary winter sitting with a focus on Covid-19 vaccinations and economic lockdowns.
But this sitting, potentially seen at the end of last year as the springboard to an October or November election which is now almost impossible, will be fiercely political.
All sides have to prepare for an election by May next year and look beyond the coronavirus health emergency to economic recovery, tax and climate change policies.
Again the parliament will appear weird and disjointed with many MPs unable to travel to Canberra appearing on remote screens, and even those who can make it locked into Canberra for a non-sitting week because of travel restrictions.
Party room meetings and proceedings on the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives will be fractured and ripe for misunderstandings and troublemaking with a premium for both leaders on internal discipline as Albanese makes fundamental changes to economic policies and Morrison continues to edge towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
One thing that will not occur next week, as in the last parliamentary sittings, is the appearance of a virtual, wallpaper prime minister with Morrison locked in The Lodge battling technical faults in the virtual broadcast to parliament during question time and giving the ALP the chance to simply ignore him.
Morrison took the painful decision to isolate in Canberra for two weeks away from his family, taking isolation to almost six weeks for him because of overseas travel and the Sydney lockdown, so that he can be in parliament in person.
Albanese, who didn’t return to his Sydney base, has exploited the PM’s lockdown and campaigned far and wide from Queensland to Tasmania, visiting coal miners, rail workers, clubs and pubs in person-to-person meetings and candidate promotions.
With a typically obsessive approach, Albanese has worked tiny towns at a local level while repositioning Labor’s big policy framework on tax, negative gearing changes, coal exports, renewables and modern manufacturing.
August is vital for Albanese to maintain momentum and for Morrison to focus on his Christmas deadline for the universal offer of vaccination and to regroup for the election which still has to address tax, economic recovery and climate change targets.
The Delta-variant coronavirus breakout in NSW with its strict restrictions, and three other states hit by Covid outbreaks, has put Morrison under real pressure over vaccination rollout and the failure to meet earlier promised targets.
Albanese has been able to continue to damage Morrison’s personal standing over the federal supply of vaccines but also has been able to use public focus on, and fears about, the more infectious Delta variant to reposition Labor’s broader policies in preparation for the election.
Labor’s attack has been based on Morrison’s “failure at his two jobs” – pandemic quarantine and vaccine rollout – because he is “arrogant and incompetent”.
There has certainly been a decline in public confidence in Morrison and the handling of vaccinations, although there is a rising recognition that premiers, in this case, Gladys Berejiklian in NSW, are to blame for much of the current emergency.
After a delay and some argument, Morrison recognised the damage being done and the futility of arguing by “saying sorry”, admitting the federal government missed it’s initial vaccination deadline and schedule and then offering a hopeful plan to remove the need for lockdowns by Christmas.
This promise and the vaccine delivery – now more than one million doses a week – with the accompanying economic impact will dominate the parliament.
Morrison, Health Minister Greg Hunt and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will point to the positive outcomes: an accelerating vaccine rollout; the successful high-level of vaccination in aged-care homes; guarantees of more Pfizer vaccines; a drop in hesitancy towards the AstraZeneca vaccine; the jobs rebound; more business support; and the hope that there will be success “by Christmas”.
Albanese, deputy Labor leader Richard Marles and shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers will concentrate on the failure to secure enough vaccinations earlier; the reliance on AstraZeneca; the lack of designated quarantine buildings; the need for a return to JobKeeper work support; and a lack of “leadership”.
Morrison can do little but wait for the vaccination level to rise, acknowledge the earlier timetable failure, point to the changed risk because of the Delta-variant, highlight the successful protection of the elderly and vulnerable (Labor held him responsible for the deaths in aged care in Victoria last year) and continue to work with the squabbling premiers on an exit plan.
The Treasurer will point to the recovery from economic recession, the saving of a million jobs, the resilience of the economy and Australia’s world-beating financial performance.
The challenge for Morrison is to exercise patience, encourage his troops to maintain unity and ensure the new vaccination timetable is met so that going into the election next year people will have a lived experience of being able to get vaccinated, be in a position to “live with Covid” and have a job.
Facing calls to exercise leadership and a time of political uncertainty, Morrison will have to survive rough weather and preferably find a rallying issue with which he can motivate the Coalition base beyond a successful coronavirus response.
Labor’s retreat on negative gearing reforms, dividend imputation tax for retirees and opposition to the Coalition’s legislated tax cuts are a sign of Albanese’s pragmatism and desire to “beat Morrison” but provide Frydenberg with the grounds for a campaign that the ALP’s late agenda change is politically cynical and not to be believed.
Likewise Albanese’s position on not opposing coal exports and proposal to find modern manufacturing jobs in minerals and renewables has more than a decade of entrenched Labor policies which have alienated blue-collar workers to overcome.
Morrison, facing his own test as Barnaby Joyce leads Nationals who do not want to give unabated support to a net zero 2050 target, arguing that the Coalition will not give a “blank cheque” with an uncosted proposal to reach net zero carbon emissions believes there is still a problem for Labor on climate change.
Indeed, next week one legislative challenge for Albanese will be the continuing Coalition attempts to ensure the Australian Renewable Energy Agency funding for renewable and low-cost energy is put up as a challenge to Labor and the Greens to once again block in the Senate.
Covid vaccination remains the priority for the winter parliamentary sitting but there’s a lot of vaccine to go into arms between August and the election as well as a range of other electorally vital issues to be fought out.
More Coverage
On the road to Damascus: My trip through a ‘liberated’ Syria
The brutal Assad dictatorship is gone but is a new repressive Islamist regime being formed in Syria?
Trump remakes America with a revolution in common sense
Is Donald J. Trump a modern Moses leading his people into the promised land? Or is he the Apocalypse? It’s too early to tell, but the blizzard of activity in Trump’s first few days demonstrates he is reinventing America in his own likeness.